🎬 My screenplay, Pay Dirt, is on the market and open for production overtures. Contact me.
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If you’re a company, competitive narratives and narrative intelligence help you enhance your market position, attract customers, and influence trends and policy. If you’re a venture capital firm, private equity firm, or startup, they help you attract investment and talent and compete. If you’re a government or NGO, they help you steer policy and enhance cooperation.
We want to hear about your goals, audiences, challenges and competitive differentiators.
We'll help you align with your goals. Or, if you want to be a disrupting salmon, we can help you swim the other way.
We'll help you develop a plan and cadence, including picking the right channels and timing.
Measuring success is challenging. We can adapt to your current metrics or help develop new ones.
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You're an organization that has embraced AI but is struggling to integrate it into your workplace and bring employees along for the ride. StoryVenture has presented to companies and to organizations such as the IMF, the European Commission/European Parliament, the German Marshall Fund and Johns Hopkins University on everything from what's holding organizations back, to the consequences of not embracing AI, to why AI is a moonshot moment for certain groups within organizations, to comparing AI to its general purpose technology prequel -- the Internet, to telling a story of action and impact, not fear and caution. StoryVenture can help you with your AI integration journey.
Every organization these days is vulnerable to non-state actors, trolls and employee activism. Building thought leadership upstream that is aligned with your values can help you navigate social issues and geopolitics. StoryVenture can work with you on both external and internal thought leadership to communicate decisions where employees and stakeholders may need a nudge, or when you have to communicate on decisions they may not like.
You’re the head of marketing or communications at an established company. You’ve got a great team, or your building out a team. You know you need to deploy competitive narratives, but you don’t have money for another headcount, and your team has zero bandwidth. StoryVenture can be your fractional partner.
You're a startup. You want to tell the world your story. StoryVenture can work with you on your narrative building and stories that win trust with customers and investors.
You’re a venture capital firm that wants to differentiate yourself in the marketplace, support your portfolio companies, and maybe even present yourself as a thoughtful, co-investor to peers. You’d have access to StoryVenture for some or all of its offerings. Or you may want to hire StoryVenture fractionally – for yourself, or to farm out to your portfolio companies.
You’re a government-related entity or NGO. Your policy messaging isn't cutting through. There may be plenty of reasons why, but you want to make a change. StoryVenture’s framework can help.
Executives and policymakers need to be chief storytellers.
Organizations need to differentiate, attract investors and stakeholders, and position themselves as experts.
Policy makers and business people alike need to navigate communications-related ambiguity and nuance in an era of data distrust, misinformation, and employee activism.
“If I ever had to write a speech for a best man toast, or for my company's annual shareholder meeting, or for a peace treaty at the UN, I would ask Dan Morrison for help. It's not just that Dan has a delightful way with words (he’s been a speechwriter, Pulitzer-nominated journalist, a corporate communication strategist, a government policy expert, and a novelist). It's that he has an incredibly wide-ranging intellect that I envy and covet. His years of world travel and deep immersion in culture -- from Silicon Valley to Washington to Europe to Asia -- give him a cosmopolitan perspective and an empathy for all points of view.
His love of literature and history also give him insights into human nature, an invaluable asset if your job is persuasion. I worked with Dan as a journalist where we often teamed up to write about telecoms and this new-fangled thing called the internet. It was always a pleasure to work with him, not just because of his talents, but because of his sense of humor and camaraderie. I would recommend Dan unreservedly as a communication and policy expert. In addition, I highly recommend you take Dan as your guide if you need to navigate through pubs, souks, embassies, battlefields, ministries, archives, arrondissements, pampas or alps.”
"Dan Morrison is talented in many different areas, but his greatest gift might be his ability to think strategically. In my years of working with him, I've learned he's an expert at communications who spans corporations, start-ups, government, multinational organizations and nonprofits. He has a unique ability to size up an organization's needs and goals and is able to develop a strategy to achieve those goals. Dan is a creative, thoughtful leader. A good example is his forward-looking approach to AI, which has created confusion and even paralysis in many companies and universities. As they play it safe, and cautious leaders wait and see how generative AI evolves, Dan works with organizations to seize on the opportunities created by this technology today. What Dan understands is that narrative matters: Organizations must develop their own story, their own reason for being. He has a talent for helping them tell their story."
"Dan's perspective on how to integrate AI into the workforce was very well received by the team at my global organization. His views are informed by having lived and worked through AI's general purpose technology prequel -- the Internet - when he was at Bloomberg News and IBM. He understands thedifferences and similarities. Dan counseled on how to create an AI mindset and then communicate it across an organization; Embracing "Centaur AI" - i.e. marrying the best of humans and the best of AI: and why AI is a moonshot moment for several groups within organizations. He emphasized being an AI ally/ambassador within an organization, seizing the thought leadership high-ground and telling a story of action and impact, not fear and caution. Dan's insights on AI, thought leadership and geo-strategic communications would be an invaluable asset to any organization seeking such counsel."
"Dan has a rare ability to distill complexity into stories that move people to action. In the fast-paced world of AI and healthcare innovation, his clarity and perspective are invaluable to founders striving to make real impact."
Nick Culbertson“I’ve been proud to call Dan both a friend and business colleague for years. We first met when we were each spearheading separate issues on behalf of a complex, international justice effort in which the US and virtually every developed nation had a significant interest. Dan stunned us all with his extraordinary ability to bring together diverse stakeholders—both public and private—and communicate on their behalf in a way that each could embrace. He knows more about finance than most CFOs and more about political processes than many sitting politicians. If you’ve worked with Dan, Pulitzer nominations are not a surprise but simply a validation of what you already know about the quality of his work.”
John Howell“Dan's strategic advice is truly helpful for EU policymakers. He contrasted how the U.S. and the EU are approaching AI innovation and regulation. He shared best practices in how to integrate AI into the workplace and academia from his personal experience as Founder and Managing Partner of StoryVenture, and as an adjunct professor. He counseled on steps that public institutions should take to lead with AI adoption and how to bring employees along on the AI journey. Dan's advice was particularly relevant because of his deep experience as a global communications and public affairs executive working and living in both the U.S. and Europe. He lives at the nexus of business, geo-politics/economics, thought leadership, tech & AI. I can't recommend him more highly."
Jorgen GrenDirector, Technology DGT, European Commission"Dan's counsel was invaluable for the IMF media team, and his range is impressive. He covered everything from new power vs. old power, the new media landscape, mis/disinformation, building trust, persuasion, thought leadership, positioning communications and public affairs professionals as leaders of AI integration, and viewing AI as the ultimate stakeholder. Dan has a rare ability to thread the private sector, government, the multilateral world, tech, international and domestic. We'd definitely work with Dan again."
Pierre MejlakChief of Media Relations & Social Outreach, IMF“Dan's ongoing thought leadership and communications storyboarding counsel has been a game-changer for Comma. He asks the right questions to help us double down on our mission, and ignore the noise. He helped us find the right word clouds and nail our messaging. He helped us understand who our real audience is, and how to leave doors open for potential audiences in the future. And when it comes to thought leadership, he said something that has stuck with me: "Remember to teach your audience something with your content. That's how you win trust." I unreservedly recommend Dan and StoryVenture as a thought leadership co-pilot."
Miller Morris“Our business model is predicated on working nomads getting what they expect to get with rental accommodations when they travel around the world. Dan helped us hone our deck before we pitched. His storytelling sensibilities and his knowledge of what investors are looking for when assessing start-ups is unmatched. One example was when Dan identified that our offering was adjacent to another space -- online dating and the disappointment that comes when the person in real life is not necessarily who they are advertised to be online. Dan's thought leadership and narrative building skills, informed by years of working across business, government, geo-economics and technology, will help any company win trust, differentiate itself, and live its brand. His work for us will help attract investors, customers, partners, and staff.”
"Through an engaging combination of storytelling, strategic insight, and subject-matter expertise, Dan laid out the risks and opportunities for responsible AI adoption for strategic communications. He drew on his experience in journalism, public affairs, and academia to help us understand not just what AI is changing, but why it matters for communicators right now. Dan broke down how AI is transforming communications — from content creation and audience segmentation to stakeholder analysis and reputation management — while emphasizing that human judgment and experience can’t be replaced. He encouraged us to see AI as a partner and offered practical guidance on experimentation, prompting, and starting with small early wins. We are grateful for Dan's time and practical recommendations. He was deeply knowledgeable about AI and will be a great resource for us going forward. Highly recommended."